Also 8 killegenico, 9 killickinnick, kin(n)ikin(n)ick, -kineck, -kennic, kinnakinnec. [Algonquin; lit. ‘mixture.’]
1. A mixture used by North American Indians as a substitute for tobacco, or for mixing with it; the commonest ingredients are dried sumach-leaves and the inner bark of dogwood or willow.
1799. J. Smith, Acc. Remark. Occurr. (1870), 16. A pouch, which … contained tobacco, killegenico, or dry sumach leaves which they mix with their tobacco.
1817. J. Bradbury, Trav. Amer., 91. They did not make use of tobacco, but the bark of Cornus sanguinea, or red dog wood, mixed with the leaves of Rhus glabra, or smooth sumach. This mixture they call kinnikineck.
1865. Visct. Milton & W. B. Cheadle, Northwest Passage by Land, 275. What the Indians call kinnikinnick—the inner bark of the dogwood.
1883. P. Robinson, in Harper’s Mag., Oct., 710/2. The ‘kinnikinic’ of travellers, a pale yellow pile of stuff resembling ‘granulated’ tobacco.
2. Any of the various plants used for this, as the Silky Cornel, Cornus sericea, Red-osier Dogwood, Cornus stolonifera, and esp. Bearberry, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi (also trailing k., k.-vine).
1839. Marryat, Diary Amer., Ser. I. I. 198. The Kinnakinnec, or weed which the Indians smoke as tobacco, grew plentifully about it.
1883. Lit. World (U.S.), 20 Feb., 55/2. The vine on the pretty cover design is the kinnikinnick, a Colorado creeper.
1886. Ogoutz Mosaic, Jan., 7/2. A soft carpet of pine needles and trailing killickinnicks.
